Before you prompt AI to answer another question or perform another task, a Wake Forest computer scientist wants you to know it could expose your sensitive data.
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An Alien Mind
Today, OpenAI’s Chief Scientist acknowledged that we’ve reached that threshold—calling modern AI an “alien mind” that operates more like complex neuroscience than traditional software.
OpenAI’s Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki: “Based on internal results, I have a strong expectation that this speed of progress could be sustained into recursive self-improvement.” (via Chubby)
Jakub Pachocki reflects on increasingly capable AI and the challenge of keeping it aligned. He calls for stronger safeguards and international coordination.
Cryptic RNA Binding Sites Are Energetically Accessible and Chemically Addressable
Fascinating biophysical research which explores the structures and energetics of cryptic sites in RNAs. Cryptic sites are revealed upon transient conformational changes which open a new binding pocket in a biomolecule.
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From Darwin to Derrida: evolution as interpretation
One of the first commandments of my scientific education was ‘thou shalt not use teleological language.’ This was closely related to a second commandment ‘thou shalt not commit anthropomorphism’. It was permissible to compare a frog to a machine but not to a human being (unless one also compared the human being to a machine). Biology did not concern itself with questions of value, purpose, and meaning. These were the province of flakey disciplines such as the humanities, social science, or religion. Asking ‘why’ rather than ‘how’ was unscientific, perhaps even sinful. In my book Darwin to Derrida, I offer an extended defense of the use of teleological reasoning in biology. The physical universe is a world without values. But meaning and purpose are the defining features of living things, they do things for good reasons because there are things in the world that they value. Biologists should not be ashamed of the difference.
SUGGESTED READING The fight for the future of biology By Denis Noble
Teleology comes from the Greek telos, something at the end, which was translated into Latin as causa finalis, and from thence into English as final cause. The final cause was that ‘for the sake of which’ an action was performed or ‘for the sake of which’ a thing existed. Final causes have been rejected as unscientific because a cause cannot come after its effect. But there is no backward causation when we act with intention. We form a plan which we attempt to implement. The intention comes before the fruition. There is no guarantee we will succeed. The outcome is not predestined. The same applies to the intentional actions of human beings. One of my favorite passages from Augustine is this:
What’s My Aging Rate? 50-Test Analysis Since 2018
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Cancer cells release antioxidants to prevent immune cells from destroying them
Molecules called reactive oxygen species, which include so-called “free radicals,” have long been viewed as damaging byproducts of our body’s metabolism—a reason antioxidant supplements have been considered a potential way to reduce cancer risk.
Now, scientists have discovered that certain immune cells depend on these molecules to activate and destroy cancer cells and that tumors exploit this dependency by releasing natural antioxidants to shut down the immune attack.
The findings, published today in Science, could help improve the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapies.
Psilocybin prevents chemotherapy-related nerve injury and associated symptoms in preclinical models
In a breakthrough study, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center discovered that psilocybin given before chemotherapy prevented the onset of nerve injury in preclinical models, even after repeated treatment cycles. The findings could help prevent pain, numbness and other common chemotherapy side effects.
The study, published in Science and co-led by Moran Amit, M.D., Ph.D., professor of Head and Neck Surgery, and Patrick Dougherty, Ph.D., professor of Pain Medicine, uncovers a previously unrecognized neuroprotective role of serotonin receptors and suggests psilocybin as a first-in-class intervention for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy.
“There is an urgent need for treatments that prevent nerve injury without interfering with lifesaving chemotherapy,” Amit said. “These findings offer important insights into how psilocybin may protect nerves before damage occurs, rather than treating symptoms after they become persistent. At UT MD Anderson, we are actively exploring the multiple facets of psychedelics to pursue interventions that improve the lives of our patients.”